Vernis Sage

Sage Vernis (real name Gino Falzon), as well as an anagram of vernissage, a French term to indicate a pictorial exhibition, was born in Benghazi in 1916, Golden Legion, Consultant for the arts at the National University of Toronto, academic at the Academy Tiberina Tommaso Campanella was an artist, writer and journalist.

In the 70s, those known as the 'years of lead', he began to create the 'Dessins sablès', mixed techniques on cardboard of various sizes on white, black or colored enamelled backgrounds on which he drew his highly psychedelic images with materials such as sand or acid colors that increase even more the dreamlike subjects of his art. Lived in the province (Teramo) he immediately obtained great success especially in the Roman 'radical-chic' circles and several of his works are still visible today in the beautiful houses built in those years in the 'upper districts' of the capital, so much so that they begin to collect his political works, ambassadors, actors, singers, big companies and billionaires of the time.

He won dozens of awards in national and international exhibitions of the time, first of all the Silver Medal at the VI International Exhibition of Contemporary Art at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, exhibiting together with artists of the caliber of Guttuso, Munari and Sassu.

Newspapers such as Il Mattino, Il Corriere, Il Tempo, Il Messaggero give resonance to his work.
It can happen to see works by Sage Vernis even in some crime films of the same years so loved by Quentin Tarantino.
It is a typically optical/psychedlic art born of the 70s but which has made a strong comeback in recent periods by exploiting the wave of passion for those times that were so violent but equally rich in poetry and drama.

At the time the prices of the authentic pieces were around 150,000 lire (from Pittori e pittura Contemporanea ed. Il Quadrato, Milan), now we are around 1000/1500 euros especially if equipped with the characteristic mirrored aluminum frames.

It is striking how such a metropolitan imaginary, made up of alienation, psychedelia and 'cosmogony' could have been born in a totally opposite reality such as that of the Italian province, made up of chats in the square with friends and walks in the gardens, clashes even more the success that are now starting to find the works of the artist from Teramo in a highly globalized market such as that of the USA.